James H. Fetzer was born
in in Pasadena, California, on 6 December
1940. He studied philosophy at Princeton University before becoming
an artillery officer in the Marine Corps.
He reached the rank of captain before resigning in 1966. Fetzer completing
his his Ph.D. in 1970.
Fetzer has taught at the
University of Kentucky, University of Virginia and the University
of South Florida. He is currently McKnight University Professor in
the Department of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Felzer has published over
20 books and more than 100 articles and reviews in the philosophy
of science and on the theoretical foundations of computer science,
artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. He has also worked
closely with David Mantik, Charles
Crenshaw,
Ronald
F. White and
Jack White in
producing books on the assassination of the John
F. Kennedy.
This has included
Assassination Science (1998), Murder
in Dealey Plaza (2000) and The
Great Zapruder Film Hoax: Deceit and Deception in the Death of JFK
(2003).
Felzer believes the Secret
Service played a role in the assassination. In the book, Assassination
Science, he writes: "I have discovered at least fifteen
indications of Secret Service complicity in the assassination of John
F. Kennedy, from the absence of protective military presence to a
lack of coverage of open windows, to motorcycles out of position,
to Secret Service agents failing to ride on the Presidential limousine,
to the vehicles arranged in an improper sequence, to the utilization
of an improper motorcade route, to the driver bringing the vehicle
to a halt after bullets began to be fired, to the almost total lack
of response by Secret Service agents, to the driver washing out the
back seat with a bucket and sponge at Parkland Hospital, to the car
being dismantled and rebuilt (on LBJ's orders), to the driver giving
false testimony to the Warren Commission, to the windshields being
switched, to the autopsy photographs being taken into custody before
they were developed".
James
H. Fetzer
Assassination
Science
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(1)
James H. Fetzer, Assassination Science and the Language of Proof,
included in Assassination
Science (1998)
The assassination
of John F. Kennedy after all, could be explained by a variety of alternative
hypotheses, including (h1) that he was killed by a lone, demented
gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald, (h2) that the Mob did it, (h3) that
pro- or anti-Castro Cubans did it, (h4) that the Soviet KGB did it,
or (h5) that his death was the result of a coup d'etat, involving
the CIA, the Mob, anti-Castro Cubans, and powerful politicians, such
as LBJ, Richard Nixon, and J. Edgar Hoover, and fully financed by
Texas oil men and other elements of the military-industrial complex.
JFK was controversial
on many grounds, including his forceful actions in support of integration,
his attempts to reduce the oil depletion allowance, his opposition
to monopolistic pricing policies, his negotiation of a Limited Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union, his failure to support the
invasion of Cuba, his resolution "to shatter the CIA into a thousand
pieces", his decision to withdraw American forces from Vietnam,
his placing covert operations under the supervision of the Pentagon,
and his brother Bobbys relentless attack upon organized crime. It
looked quite likely that he would drop LBJ as his 1964 running mate
and, following his reelection, would retire J. Edgar Hoover as Director
of the FBI.
Now consider some of the
most important findings reported in this book. David Mantik has discovered
that lateral X-rays of the President's cranium have been fabricated
to conceal a massive blow-out to the back of his head and that a 6.5
mm object has been superimposed upon the original AP X-ray Robert
Livingston has concluded that diagrams of the brain in the National
Archives must be of some brain other than that of John F Kennedy.
A group of experts on various aspects of photographic evidence has
found that the Zapruder film has been extensively edited using highly
sophisticated techniques. If we accept this evidence on the basis
of the studies presented here, then what does it tell us about the
assassination The impact of this evidence appears to be considerable.
The Mob, for example, would not have had the power to reach into Bethesda
Naval Hospital to fabricate X-rays of the Presidents cranium. Neither
pro - nor anti-Castro Cubans could have substituted diagrams of someone
elses brain for that of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The KGB could not
have have had access to the Zapruder film in order to subject it to
extensive editing, even if it had the ability to do so. Neither could
any of these things have been done by Lee Harvey Oswald, who was in
custody or already dead.
None of these hypotheses
is consistent with this new evidence, which means that none of these
things appears possible. We now have evidence, not previously available,
which cannot be reconciled with the truth of (h1), (h2), (h3), or
(h4). At least, it cannot be reconciled with those hypotheses when
they are intended to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth about the assassination. It remains the case that, even
though the Mob, for example, could not have fabricated X-rays, substituted
diagrams of a brain, or edited the Zapruder film, it could still have
put up guns or money. That would not be especially surprising.
What, then, about (h5)?
I have discovered at least fifteen indications of Secret Service complicity
in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, from the absence of protective
military presence to a lack of coverage of open windows, to motorcycles
out of position, to Secret Service agents failing to ride on the Presidential
limousine, to the vehicles arranged in an improper sequence, to the
utilization of an improper motorcade route, to the driver bringing
the vehicle to a halt after bullets began to be fired, to the almost
total lack of response by Secret Service agents, to the driver washing
out the back seat with a bucket and sponge at Parkland Hospital, to
the car being dismantled and rebuilt (on LBJs orders), to the driver
giving false testimony to the Warren Commission, to the windshields
being switched, to the autopsy photographs being taken into custody
before they were developed, and more.
(2)
Blurb
on James H. Fetzer's book, The
Great Zapruder Film Hoax (2003)
Perhaps no greater debate
has raged in the history of the study of the death of JFK than over
the authenticity of a 27-second home movie of the assassination, known
as "the Zapruder film". This footage has been described
as "the most significant amateur recording of a news event in
history". It is surely one of the most controversial. Some students
of the crime take it as the absolute foundation for understanding
what actually transpired. Others are not so sure.
This book brings together
leading experts on the film, including Jack White, the legendary photoanalyst;
David Healy, an expert on film production and post-production; John
Costella, Ph.D., a physicist with specialization in light and the
properties of moving objects; David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., the leading
expert on the medical evidence and another authority on the film;
David Lifton, a noted student of the assassination and author of Best
Evidence; and James H. Fetzer, Ph.D., a professor of logic, critical
thinking, and scientific reasoning.
The evidence that is presented
in this volume provides proof that the film has not simply been edited
by removing a few frames or by altering the contents of specific sequences
(which has indeed been done in this instance) but that the whole film
has been created by the use of sophisticated techniques relying upon
optical printing and special effects, whereby any foreground can be
merged with any background, any specific unwanted events can be removed
and any wanted events can be introduced.
(3)
Review
by James
H. Fetzer of Thomas Mallon's book, Mrs. Paine's Garage
(2002)
Interest in Paine's garage,
for example, derives from Oswald having stored his Mannlicher-Carcano,
wrapped in a blanket, in that place. But no remnants of having been
wrapped in a blanket were ever discovered on the alleged assassination
weapon - not the least hairs or fibers - which is very curious, indeed,
had the weapon actually been stored there.
The alleged instrument,
a cheap, mass-produced World War II Italian carbine, has a muzzle
velocity of around 2,000 fps, which means that it is not a high-velocity
weapon. Since the President's death certificates (1963), The Warren
Report (1964), and even more recent articles in The Journal of the
American Medical Association (1992) report that JFK was killed by
high velocity bullets, it follows that he was not killed by Oswald's
weapon, thereby greatly reducing interest in Mrs. Paine's garage.
Indeed, though it may come
as news to the author, many other students of the case, including
Harold Weisberg, Whitewash (1965), Peter Model and Robert Groden,
JFK: The Case for Conspiracy (1976), and Robert Groden and
Harrison Livingstone, High Treason (1989), have also made the
same observation. These are not books cited in this study, however,
which raises rather serious questions as to why someone whose knowledge
of the assassination appears to be so meager would write a book about
it.
He does not know that Oswald
had a history with American intelligence; that Oswald was being "sheep
dipped" in New Orleans; that Oswald was an informant for the
FBI; that the "paper bag" story is a fabrication; that Oswald
was in the lunch room on the second floor having a coke during the
shooting; that Oswald passed a paraffin test; and on and on. A weightly
body of evidence substantiates all of these discoveries, but none
of them is even mentioned, much less disputed, by the author of this
book.
The sources he does cite,
moreover, are far from reassuring. His acknowledgments, for example,
lists six persons, including Mrs. Paine and her former husband, Michael,
Priscilla Johnson McMillan and John McAdams. McAdams has gained a
certain degree of notoriety for his one-sided defense of the "lone
nut" hypothesis, which disregards overwhelming contradictory
evidence, including proof that the "magic bullet" theory
is not only false but anatomically impossible.
Priscilla Johnson McMillan,
however, is the most intriguing name on this list. It was she who
"interviewed" Oswald on the occasion of his pseudo-defection
to the Soviet Union; it was she who was selected by the United States
government to accompany Stalin's daughter, Sevetlana, when she defected
to the United States; and it was she who was chosen to "baby
sit" Marina during those turbulent times in the aftermath of
the assassination. Her CIA connections virtually qualify as "common
knowledge"...
The book endorses the idea
that Oswald was responsible for an alleged attempt on the life of
Major General Edwin Walker that occurred on 10 April 1963. But there
are many reasons to doubt it. The situations were very different:
a high-powered 30.06 rifle versus a medium-to-low powered 6.5 mm carbine;
a stationary versus moving target; a miss versus two hits out of three.
It is difficult to imagine how their varied circumstances could have
been less suggestive of a common shooter!
Unless, of course, their
politics were similar - but Walker was a right-wing general, while
Kennedy was a left-wing president. Kennedy had even relieved Walker
of his command in Germany! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude
that these shootings were not performed by the same shooter. It does
provide an opportunity for Thomas Mallon to compose another book.
If Lee also had a 30.06, then he had to have stored it somewhere.
We can now look forward to a sequel, Mrs. Paine's Attic.
Mallon also asserts that,
"Oswald took a bus and taxi back to his rooming house in Oak
Cliffs, where he picked up the pistol that he used minutes later to
kill the patrolman, J. D. Tippit, who stopped him at the corner of
Tenth and Patton". If he were correct about this - Mallon offers
no reason for thinking so! - then Oswald must have been the only assassin
in history to make his escape by public transportation. He also ignores
evidence that Tippit was shot with automatic(s) when Oswald was packing
a revolver.
(4)
James H.
Fetzer, Arlen
Specter (2000)
During an interview about
his new book, Passion for Truth, on 4 March 2001 with Paul Alexander
and John Batchelor on WABC, which lasted seven minutes, Arlen Specter
asserted seven claims about the assassination of JFK and the "magic"
bullet theory that are not simply false but actually provably false.
His assertions and the grounds on which we know they are false are
as follows: (1) that JFK was standing when he was hit: provably false.
We have more than 200 Dealey Plaza witnesses and 500 photographic
records - counting the Zapruder film as one - that prove he was sitting,
not standing, when he was killed; (2) that a bullet entered at the
back of JFK's neck: provably false in six different ways: (a) Boswell's
diagram; (b) Jack's shirt; (c) Jack's jacket; (d) Berkley's death
certificate; (e) Sibert and O'Neill's report on the autopsy; plus
(f) ARRB release showing that Gerald Ford had the final report changed
to make it appear as if the bullet had entered the base of his neck
when it had not; (3) that the bullet hit nothing solid: provably false.
David Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., has drawn a line through a CAT scan that
demonstrates that a bullet entering where this is alleged to have
entered and exiting where this is alleged to have exited would have
had to impact with cervical vertebra, which means that the single
bullet theory is not just false but actually anatomically impossible;
(4) that he has "looked" at the X-rays and they support
the conclusions of the Warren Commission: provably false. Specter
is not an expert on the interpretation of X-rays, so even if he has
taken a look (which I doubt), it would mean nothing. Someone who is
an expert has studied them repeatedly and has discovered that they
have been fabricated in at least two different ways: (a) the right
lateral cranial X-ray has been fabricated by imposing a patch to conceal
a massive blow-out to the back of the head; and, (b) the anterior-posterior
X-ray has been fabricated by adding a 6.5 mm metal-like object to
implicate a 6.5 mm weapon; (5) he claims there is no evidence of conspiracy:
provably false. That the magic bullet theory is anatomically impossible
and that the X-rays have been altered implicates the government in
a conspiracy to conceal the truth about the assassination, where the
most reasonable explanation for government complicity in the cover-up
is government complicity in the crime. (6) he says that we now know
that Humes burned his notes: but what is new is not that he burned
his notes (which were stained with blood: that is rather old news)
but that he also burned the first-draft of his autopsy report (under
orders from his superior: that is the new news); and, (7) he asserts
that you can't prove a negative: but we have just done so six times:
we have proven that Arlen Specter has made no less than six false
claims - seven, including this one - during this brief interview.
| If
you have ever been tempted to believe that President Kennedy was
killed by a lone, demented gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald, then
Assassination Science is the one book which will convince you,
beyond any reasonable doubt, that there was indeed a conspiracy
and a cover-up. Completely lacking the wild speculations that
have marred some books on the shooting of Kennedy, Assassination
Science sticks to the hard facts, interpreted by medical and scientific
expertise. (James
H. Fetzer, Catfeet, ISBN 0 8126 9366 3, £9.00) |
James
H. Fetzer, Assassination Science, Catfeet (1998)
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
